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SONNETS FROM THE 
PORTUGUESE 




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LIBRARY of OONGRESS 
Two Copies rft&etveu 

JUL 8 1^05 

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■V. 



THE DE VINNE PRESS 



CONTENTS 



Introduction, by Richard Watson 
Gilder 



Poems by Mrs. Browning 

Sonnets from the Portuguese . . 3 

Life and Love 93 

A Denial 95 

Proof and Disproof 100 

Question and Answer 104 

Inclusions - .... 105 

Insufficiency 107 

Poems by Robert Browning 

One Word More in 

Prospice 131 

"O Lyric Love," from "The Ring 

and the Book " 134 



INTRODUCTION 



I 



In the very heart and center of 
our modern world of the nine- 
teenth century there was en- 
acted and immortally sung one 
of the most exquisite love-his- 
tories of which the world has 
knowledge. The marriage of 
Robert Browning and Eliza- 
beth Barrett has been well 
named " the most perfect ex- 
ample of wedded happiness in 
the history of literature — per- 
fect in the inner life and perfect 
in its poetical expression." 1 

1 The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Brown- 
ing. Edited with Biographical Additions 
by Frederic G. Kenyon. 



Robert Browning, the bril- 
liant author of " Bells and 
Pomegranates," and Elizabeth 
Barrett, 1 the popular and be- 
loved poet, but also the se- 
cluded invalid, had friends in 
common. One of them was 
Robert Hengist Home, the 
author of " Orion." In the 
preparation of a work of liter- 
ary criticism, " A New Spirit 
of the Age," he had the help of 
friends, his " powerful and most 
valuable " coadjutor being Miss 
Barrett. Home afterward made 
public "the fact that the mot- 
toes, which are singularly happy 
and appropriate, were for the 
most part supplied by Miss 
Barrett and Robert Browning, 
then unknown to each other." 2 



1 Robert Browning was born in the parish 
of St. Giles, Camberwell, London, May 7, 
1812, and died in Venice, December 12, 1889. 
Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett was born 
at Coxhoe Hall, near Durham, March 6, 1806, 
and died in Florence, June 29, 1861. 

2 Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning 



In April, 1842, Miss Barrett 
pleases her blind mentor, Mr. 
Boyd, by telling him, at his re- 
quest, the names of those who 
have liked her articles in 
the " Athenaeum " on the Greek 
poets. " Mr. Home, the poet, 
and Mr. Browning were not 
behind in appreciation," she 
says ; and " Mr. Browning is 
said to be learned in Greek, 
especially in the dramatists." 
In the next April she is writing 
to Mr. Cornelius Matthews in 
America, and again looms the 
name of Browning. " I do as- 
sure you," she says, " I never 
saw him in my life— do not 
know him even by correspon- 
dence — and yet, whether 
through fellow-feeling for Eleu- 
sinian mysteries, or whether 
through the more generous 
motive of appreciation of his 

Addressed to Robert Hengist Home, with 
Comments on Contemporaries. Edited by 
S. R. Townshend Mayer. 



act more fateful, to bring to her 
the poet himself. " Kenyon 
the magnificent," Browning 
called him, as Bayard Taylor 
tells us ; and it was to this 
" dear friend and relative " that 
Mrs. Browning inscribed her 
lyric "The Dead Pan." Mr. 
Kenyon, says Mrs. Orr, had 
often spoken to the Browning 
family of his invalid cousin, 
and had given them copies of 
her works. As early as 1841, 
indeed, Kenyon had tried to 
bring about a meeting between 
the poets, but Miss Barrett had 
shrunk from it. But when the 
poet returned to England, late 
in 1844, he saw the volume 
containing " Lady Geraldine's 
Courtship," which had ap- 
peared during his absence, and 
which Kenyon had sent to 
Miss Browning. " On hearing 
him express his admiration of 
it, Kenyon begged him to write 



to Miss Barrett, and himself 
tell her how the poems had im- 
pressed him ; ' for,' he added, 
'my cousin is a great invalid, 
and sees no one; but great 
souls jump at sympathy.' " 1 

At this time, be it remem- 
bered, Elizabeth Barrett was an 
accepted poet in both England 
and America, while Robert 
Browning was slowly approach- 
ing, through both critical de- 
preciation and approval, the 
assured fame of his after years. 
When, therefore, the young 
Browning read in " Lady Ger- 
aldine's Courtship " words of 
high recognition, his keen ap- 
preciation of the writer's genius, 
and his natural desire for a 
wider audience, gave the lines 
to him a very special impor- 
tance. How familiar now to 

1 Life and Letters of Robert Browning, 
by Mrs. Sutherland Orr. For Browning's 
own account of this see his lettter to E. B. B., 
postmarked November 17, 1845. 



the world the stanza is, with its 
large associations : 

Or at times a modern volume, 
Wordsworth's solemn-thought- 
ed idyl, 

Howitt's ballad-verse, or Tennyson's 
enchanted reverie, — 

Or from Browning some " Pome- 
granate," which, if cut deep 
down the middle, 

Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, 
of a veined humanity. 

The correspondence that be- 
gan with Browning's letter to 
Elizabeth Barrett of January 
10, 1845, and the meeting 
which took place on May 20th 
of the same year, led quickly to 
a great love — amply and ex- 
quisitely expressed in the mem- 
orable correspondence before 
marriage ; uniquely and with 
splendid art, in the poetry of 
both. To her friends, mean- 
time, as the friendship budded 
and blossomed, Elizabeth, while 



keeping her secret, did not re- 
frain from conveying her ad- 
miration for her poet acquaint- 
ance, and her joy in knowing 
him. As we read her early 
correspondence and catch the 
name of Browning again and 
again, we seem to hear the 
footstep of fate : we are, as 
the later Kenyon says, "like 
the spectators at a Greek trag- 
edy who watch the develop- 
ment of a drama of which the 
denouement is already known 
to them." 

Early in her year of miracle, 
1845, she writes to Mrs. 
Martin: "I had a letter from 
Browning the poet last night, 
which threw me into ecstasies 
— Browning, the author of 
' Paracelsus,' and king of the 
mystics"; and once more: 
" I am getting deeper and 
deeperinto correspondence with 
Robert Browning, poet and 



mystic, and we are growing 
to be the truest of friends." 
To Mr. Westwood, in April, 
1845, she expresses her delight 
in his appreciation of this 
poet's " high power — very high, 
according to my view — very 
high, and various." In May 
she writes to an acquaintance 
in America that Mr. Browning 
"is a poet for posterity. I have 
a full faith in him as poet and 
prophet." To Poe she writes : 
" Our great poet, Mr. Browning, 
is enthusiastic in his admiration 
of the rhythm" of "The Raven." 1 
To Mr. Westwood, again, she 
writes, asking him to tell her 
honestly if he discovers in her 
"anything like the Sphinxine- 
ness of Browning." As for 
Browning, she says, " the fault 
is certainly great," but she 
finds that " the depth and 

1 John H. Ingram's Life of Mrs. Brown- 
ing. 

xiv 



power of the significance (when 
it is apprehended) glorifies the 
puzzle." In May of this year 
she returns to the inescapable 
subject in writing to Mr. West- 
wood, telling him that when he 
has read " Sordello " he must 
"read for relaxation and rec- 
ompense . . . ' Colombe's Birth- 
day,' which is exquisite," 
though it is " Pippa Passes " 
that she " kneels to with deep- 
est reverence." Later, she 
praises, to Mrs. Martin, Lan- 
dor's verses to him whom she 
calls "my friend and England's 
poet, Mr. Browning." Early 
in 1846 she tells Mrs. Martin 
that a friend, " one of the 
greatest poets in England, too," 
has brought her flowers. 

Elizabeth Barrett's love- 
poems can now be read in the 
light of her love-letters, with 
which they exquisitely inter- 
blend. These love-letters give 



her chief prose version of their 
courtship. But there is a letter 
of hers to Mrs. Martin, written 
from Pisa in October of 1846, 
which with great explicitness 
and moving eloquence reviews 
the circumstances of her ac- 
quaintance with Browning, and 
of her marriage without the 
consent or knowledge of the 
strangest father in the annals 
of literature. Mr. Barrett's 
treatment of the three children 
who dared to marry, and above 
all of a daughter who was 
no less dutiful and affectionate 
than she was splendid and 
world-renowned in talents, was 
so astoundingly hard and unre- 
lenting that one is appalled 
into reticence of censure, and 
into wondering contemplation 
of the psychological peculiari- 
ties that could bring about such 
hideously unpaternal conduct, 
— questioning, as one must, 



whether it could have been 
this gross stubbornness in him 
that turned to mental and moral 
force in the frail and wonder- 
ful being who was his child. 
The marriage took place on 
September 12, 1846. They 
flew at once to that " warm 
climate " which had been wisely 
prescribed for Elizabeth, but 
which her father had forbidden 
her, and where comparatively 
good health and undreamed-of 
happiness awaited her. 

But the whole story is com- 
passed, in brief, in this one let- 
ter to Mrs. Martin : how she 
had been, after what broke her 
heart at Torquay,— her bro- 
ther's death, — as dead as if she 
had her face against a grave ; 
how five years before Mr. Ken- 
yon had wished to bring Robert 
Browning to see her, but she 
had refused, in her blind dislike 
to seeing strangers ; how, after 



the publication of her last vol- 
umes, he wrote to her; how 
their correspondence led to her 
agreeing to see him as she never 
had received any other man. 
He wrote, she said, the most 
exquisite letters possible, hav- 
ing a way of putting things, 
and she consented — against her 
will. Then began his attach- 
ment, "infatuation call it," re- 
sisting the various denials 
which were her plain duty at 
the beginning, and persisting 
past them all. She began, she 
said, with a grave assurance 
that she was in an exceptional 
position, and saw him just in 
consequence of it, and that he 
must not recur to " that sub- 
ject." He was for a while si- 
lent, but meantime the letters 
and the visits "rained down 
more and more." She tried to 
show him he was throwing into 
the ashes his best affections; 



but he said he loved her, and 
should, to his last hour. He 
would wait twenty years, if she 
pleased. He preferred to be 
allowed to sit only an hour a 
day at her side, to the fulfilment 
of the brightest dream that 
should exclude her, in any pos- 
sible world. Then she tells 
how the doctor had said that 
all she needed was a " warm 
climate and air," and her fa- 
ther was no help to her in this. 
He was not in favor of Italy ; 
his attitude " involved a disap- 
pointment in the affections." 
She tries, in her letter, to palliate 
the attitude of her father, and 
explains with pathetic elabora- 
tion why a secret marriage and 
a flight to Italy were necessary 
to her life and her happiness, 
as well as a measure due to her 
faithful and unselfish lover. 
Then comes the praise of their 
six happy weeks together, and, 



above all, her praise of him of 
whom she says that " his genius 
and all but miraculous attain- 
ments are the least things in 
him, the moral nature being of 
the very noblest, as all who 
ever knew him admit." 

Elizabeth Barrett's chief po- 
etic version of this courtship 
has long been known to the 
world in her so-called "Son- 
nets from the Portuguese," of 
which it has been said that they 
are "the most beautiful love- 
poems ever written by woman 
to man," 1 and that they are 
" unequalled by any English 
sonnet-series except Shake- 
speare's own." 2 Mrs. Ritchie 
says truly of these " Sonnets " : 
" There is a quality in them 
which is beyond words ; an 
echo from afar which belongs 

1 A Selection from Mrs. Browning's Poems, 
by Heloise E. Hersey. 

2 Victorian Poets, by Edmund Clarence 
Stedman. 



to the highesthuman expression 
of feeling." 1 The complete 
story of their composition, and 
of their revelation to him who 
was their inspiration, has only 
been put forth since the death 
of Robert Browning. 

It was during their residence 
in Pisa, early in 1847, that 
Browning first saw the " Son- 
nets from the Portuguese," as 
the poet Edmund Gosse has 
told by authority of Browning 
himself. 2 "Their custom was, 

1 Dictionary of National Biography. 

- Critical Kit-Kats, by Edmund Gosse. 
Mr. Gosse, by his paper on the Sonnets from 
ihe Portuguese, and in his account of 
Browning's Early Career, first published 
in the Century Magazine and reprinted in 
Robert Browning — Personalia, has placed 
all readers of the Brownings under perma- 
nent obligations. It is interesting to recall 
that this latter article was prepared for the 
Century Magazine with Browning's con- 
sent and cooperation, and that, opposed as 
was Browning to contribute to periodicals, he 
allowed two pieces of verse of his to appear 
in the Century — the lines written in Miss 
Edith Bronson's album in explanation of his 
" Touch him ne'er so lightly " (the Century 
for November, 1882), and the Rawdon Brown 
sonnet, written at Mrs. Bronson's request 



Mr. Browning said, to write 
alone, and not to show each 
other what they had written. 
This was a rule which he some- 
times broke through, but she 
never. He had the habit of 
working in a down-stairs room, 
where their meals were spread, 
while Mrs. Browning studied in 
a room on the floor above. One 
day, early in 1847, their break- 
fast being over, Mrs. Browning 
went up-stairs, whileherhusband 
stood at the window watching 
the street till the table should 
be cleared. He was presently 
aware of some one behind him, 
although the servant was gone. 
It was Mrs. Browning, who held 
him by the shoulder to prevent 
his turning to look at her, and 

(the Century for February, 1884). Here also, 
after his death, were published Mrs. Bron- 
son's two papers of recollections of the poet. 
Thus were continued the Brownings' tra- 
ditional relations with America. See, also, 
The Brownings and America, by Elizabeth 
Porter Gould. 

xxii 



at the same time pushed a 
packet of papers into the pocket 
of his coat. She told him to 
read that, and to tear it up if he 
did not like it ; and then she 
fled again to her own room." 
All this was in fulfilment of 
prophecy ; for had she not said 
in her letter of July 22, 1846, 
as much as this about the "Son- 
nets" : " You shall see some day 
at Pisa what I will not show 
you now. Does not Solomon 
say that ' there is a time to read 
what is written'? If he doesn't, 
he ought." 

Browning, notwithstanding 
his intense love of privacy, 
took the right ground concern- 
ing these works of inimitable 
art. " I dared not reserve to my- 
self," he said, " the finest sonnets 
written in any language since 
Shakespeare's." Mrs. Browning 
finally consented to their being 
printed, under Miss Mitford's 



care, as " Sonnets | by | E. B. 
B. | Reading | Not for Publi- 
cation | 1847," and in the edi- 
tion of her poems brought out 
in 1850 they were actually pub- 
lished, with their present title, 
which was suggested by her 
husband. The author's sug- 
gestion had been " Sonnets 
translated from the Bosnian " ; 
but Browning, who called the 
author of " Catarina to Carao- 
ens " his " own little Portu- 
guese," named the title that 
prevailed. 1 

Every one of the forty-four 
" Sonnets from the Portuguese " 
follows the Italian method 
rather than the English or 
Shaksperian sonnet form. With- 
in the form chosen they have 
an interesting mingling of reg- 

1 Professor Dowden speaks of " the unex- 
pected and wonderful gift " of the Son- 
nets to her husband at Pisa, as "the high- 
est evidence of his wife's powers as a poet." 
Robert Browning, by' Edward Dowden. 



ularity with irregularity. In 
only seven of the sonnets (Son- 
nets IV, VIII, XIII, XVI, XXVII, 

xxxv, and xliii) is there a 
full pause at the end of the oc- 
tave. Otherwise there is great 
regularity, the whole forty-four 
poems having the same scheme 
of rhymes, there being uniformly 
but two rhymes in the octave 
and two in t"he sestet (ar- 
ranged thus: 1,2,2,1; 1,2,2, 
1 i 3,4,3,4,3,4)- In the seven 
sonnets where there is a full 
pause at the end of the octave, 
six of these are true pauses, but 
in one (Sonnet xliii) there 
are other pauses which break 
the effect of the octave. Again, 
in only three of these seven 
(Sonnets iv, xm, and xliii) 
are the quatrains of the octave 
marked. Speaking technically, 
then, Sonnets iv and xm 
are the nearest perfection, 
though as poems they rank no 



higher than others in the se- 
ries. In this series, though there 
are such rhymes as " burn " and 
"scorn," " desert" and " heart," 
"south" and "truth," the 
writer has fortunately not ven- 
tured upon such extreme exper- 
iments in rhyming as earlier 
she conscientiously pursued. 1 
It may be further noted that in 
fourteen of her other group of 
forty-four sonnets, all in the 
Italian form, she rhymes differ- 
ently in the sestet. 

In the body of Mrs. Brown- 
ing's poetry, — as artistic as it 
often is, and as lofty in spirit 
as it always is,— the judicious 



1 For a competent discussion of Mrs. 
Browning's earlier theory and practice in 
the matter of rhyme see Fernand Henry's 
Les Sonnets Portugais (1905), which con- 
tains the third French translation of the 
Sonnets from the Portuguese, along with 
a sympathetic life of the author and a just 
appreciation of her writings. M. Henry is 
struck, as must be all critical readers, by 
the fact that Mrs. Browning's prose — her 
published correspondence — is not marred 
by the faults apparent in much of her verse. 



have again and again to grieve 
at a touch of incongruity, a 
strained note which vitiates the 
art. Even in these " Sonnets " 
that note is not absent ; but it is 
rare here, and it is quickly for- 
gotten in the rush of noble pas- 
sion outpoured in tones seraphic. 
No technical analysis can 
discover the elements of end- 
less attraction and power of in- 
spiration contained in these 
poems. It would seem as if 
the breaking down of the bar- 
rier between octave and ses- 
tet, in this case, was by in- 
stinctive and fortunate choice, 
and in accordance with the pe- 
culiar and individual flow of 
thought and diction. This 
thought and this diction are in- 
deed intensely individual ; they 
are tinctured with the artistic 
habit and the singular experi- 
ence of this one woman, — an 
invalid, familiar with the thought 



of death, and a scholarly and 
accomplished poet,— loved, as 
it seemed to her miraculously, 
by a strong man and a great 
poet. Her education and her 
life-history were different from 
other women's ; her lover was 
infinitely different from other 
men. Nevertheless, these ac- 
cidents of circumstance offer no 
interference to the universality 
of the appeal of her inspired 
song; and the lyric passion of 
these "Sonnets" will remain for- 
ever a unique, vital, and typical 
expression of the awakening 
and consecration of love in the 
heart of woman. 

Indeed, these " Sonnets," in 
their profound vision ; their 
flaming sincerity, the eloquence 
with which they express the 
utter self-abnegation no less 
than the self-assertion of gen- 
uine love, transcend the distinc- 
tions of sex and proclaim au- 



thenticallynot only the woman's 
part, but, also, that which is 
common, in the master passion, 
to both woman and man. 

But the artistic language of 
her love-experience was not 
confined to this great poem- 
series. It was framed also in 
other exquisite and noble verse, 
namely, in the six poems, " Life 
and Love," " A Denial," "Proof 
and Disproof," " Question and 
Answer," " Inclusions," and 
"Insufficiency," which are 
printed in Mrs. Browning's 
works just before the " Son- 
nets from the Portuguese." 1 

Her poem-series of " Casa 
Guidi Windows " gives us de- 
lightful glimpses of their com- 
mon joy— in later, peaceful, 
married years— in those Italian 
scenes which were to each a 
passion : 

1 See the Coxhoe edition ; also The Let- 
ters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Mr. 
Gosse's Essay. 



And Vallombrosa, we two went to 
see 
Last June, beloved companion, — 
where sublime 
The mountains live in holy families, 
And the slow pine woods ever 
climb and climb 
Half up their breasts. 

How oft, indeed, 
We 've sent our souls out from the 
rigid north, 
On bare white feet which would not 
print nor bleed, 
To climb the Alpine passes and look 
forth, 
Where booming low the Lombard 
rivers lead - 
To gardens, vineyards, all a dream 
is worth, — 
Sights, thou and I, Love, have 
seen afterward 
From Tuscan Bellosguardo, wide 
awake, 
When, standing on the actual 
blessed sward 
Where Galileo stood at nights to take 
The vision of the stars, we have 
found it hard, 
Gazing upon the earth and heaven, 
to make 
A choice of beauty. 

XXX 



II 



It is extremely interesting to 
find not only that Browning did 
not know that his friend was 
constantly expressing her inti- 
mate thought of him in verse, 
but that he gave a reason for 
the fact that he did not express 
his own affection for her in po- 
etic form. In the April of 1845, 
three weeks before their meet- 
ing, he wrote : " I think I will 
really write verse to you some 
day." And a year later, April 
14, 1846, he says he will see 
her the next day, adding : "I 
will tell you many things, it 
seems to me now, but when I 
am with you they always float 
out of mind. The feelings must 



remain unwritten— unsung too, 
I fear. I very often fancy that 
if I had never before resorted 
to that mode of expression, to 
singing, — poetry — now I should 
resort to it, discover it ! Where- 
as now — my very use and ex- 
perience of it deters me — if one 
phrase of mine should seem 
' poetical ' in Mrs. Procter's 
sense — a conscious exaggera- 
tion, — put in for effect ! only 
seem, I say! So I dare not try 
yet — but one day!" 

The above words are the very 
precursor and proem of "One 
Word More": 

What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's 
picture? 

This : no artist lives and loves, that 
longs not 

Once, and only once, and for one 
only, 

(Ah, the prize!) to find his love a 
language 

Fit and fair and simple and suffi- 
cient — 



Using nature that 's an art to others, 
Not, this one time, art that 's turned 

his nature. 
Ay, of all the artists living, loving, 
None but would forego his proper 

dowry, — 
Does he paint? he fain would write 

a poem,— 
Does he write? he fain would paint 

a picture, 
Put to proof art alien to the artist's, 
Once, and only once, and for one 

only, 
So to be the man and leave the artist, 
Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's 

sorrow. 

I shall never, in the years remaining, 

Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you 
statues, 

Make you music that should all- 
express me ; 

So it seems: I stand on my attain- 
ment. 

This of verse alone, one life allows 
me ; 

Verse and nothing else have I to 
give you. 

Other heights in other lives, God 
willing : 

All the gifts from all the heights, 
your own, Love! 
xxxiii 



So little need was there in their 
life together for expression in 
art of their feeling for each 
other that Browning's " one 
day" did not come till nine 
years after his letter of 1846 
promising a poem to her. "One 
Word More " was written in 
September, 1855, at T 3 Dorset 
Street, London, while Mr. and 
Mrs. Browning were staying 
there with Miss Browning. 
Professor Dowden says truly 
that " the year 1855 was a for- 
tunate year for English poetry." 
The book of Browning's " Men 
and Women " was published in 
the autumn, with its " beautiful 
epilogue, addressed to E. B. B." 
A few months before had ap- 
peared Tennyson's " Maud." 
It was one memorable night 
during this autumn, by the way, 
that occurred the reading of the 
whole of " Maud " by its au- 
thor, with the Brownings and 



Rossettis as audience, of which 
Dante Rossetti's sketch is a 
well-known relic. It will be 
remembered that the reading of 
" Maud " by the author was fol- 
lowed by " Fra Lippo Lippi " 
read by Browning. 

" One Word More " is the 
only poem written during his 
wife's lifetime that is openly 
addressed to her by Browning. 1 
How much of his wife, and of 
his experience as her lifelong 
lover, went into his poetry it 
would be impossible accurately 
to detect and measure. So elu- 
sive are the workings of the 
artist's mind, so replete with 
suggestions and analogies are 
the poet's dreams, so full of 
meaning within meaning may 
be the images and symbols of 

1 Mr. George Willis Cooke, in A Guide 
Book to the Poetic and Dramatic Works of 
Robert Browning, quotes from W. M. Ros- 
setti's article in the Academy concerning 
certain inaccurate references of Browning 
to Dante in. this poem. 

XXXV 



poetry, it would be idle to en- 
deavor to determine where in- 
vention ends, and exact de- 
scription and autobiographical 
confession begin. Of this we 
may be sure, that the imagina- 
tion of Browning was immea- 
surably enriched and deeply 
and permanently colored by his 
relation to his wife, and by her 
personality and her art, as in 
like manner was her imagina- 
tion by him; and that in one 
poem, his longest, "The Ring 
and the Book," her influence 
was direct and dominating. As 
"One Word More" was the 
only poem publicly addressed to 
Mrs. Browning by her husband 
during her life, so the references 
to her in the Pacchiarotto " Epi- 
logue," and in " The Ring and 
the Book" and the last three 
lines of " Prospice " seem to be 
the only open references to her 
in his poetry after her death. 



As she referred directly to her 
husband in " Casa Guidi Win- 
dows," so there are minor ref- 
erences in his poems which 
point to his living wife, as in 
" By the Fireside " : 

I will speak now, 
No longer watch you as you sit 
Reading by fire-light, that great brow 
And the spirit-small hand propping 
it, 
Mutely, my heart knows how — 

When, if I think but deep enough, 
You are wont to answer, prompt 
as rhyme ; 

and in " The Guardian Angel, 
a Picture of Fano," where they 
had been together : 

We were at Fano, and three times 
we went 
To sit and see him in his chapel 
there, 
And drink his beauty to our soul's 
content 
— My angel with me too : 
c xxxvii 



Again in the last stanza : 

My love is here. 

William Sharp, in his " Life of 
Browning," says he has been 
told that "'Two in the Cam- 
pagna ' was as actually personal 
as ' The Guardian Angel,' " 
though " too universally true to 
be merely personal." "A Face," 
which has been thought to be, 
possibly, a portrait of Mrs. 
Browning, really describes Em- 
ily Patmore, daughter of the 
poet, Coventry Patmore. 1 

The lyric, " My Star," has 
been held, according to the 
Riverside Edition, and other 
authorities, to refer pointedly 
to the poet's wife : 

MY STAR 

All I know 

Of a certain star 
Is, it can throw 

(Like the angled spar) 

1 Robert Browning, by Professor Dowden. 
xxxviii 



Now a dart of red, 

Now a dart of blue ; 
Till my friends have said 

They would fain see, too, 
My star that dartles the red, and the 

blue! 
Then it stops like a bird ; like a 
flower, hangs furled : 
They must solace themselves with 
the Saturn above it. 
What matter to me if their star is a 
world ? 
Mine has opened its soul to me; 
therefore I love it. 

On the question as to whether 
it is, in fact, Mrs. Browning 
who is here imaged I am per- 
mitted to quote from private let- 
ters of Miss Charlotte Porter, 
who says : " There is, I think, 
no ' absolutely authentic proof ' 
that ' My Star ' is addressed to 
Mrs. Browning. There is a 
tradition that it is. I have al- 
ways found ' It is said ' echoed 
as to ' My Star,' just as it is in the 
Riverside note and in notes 
preceding that. And it is so 



long established a hearsay that 
I shall not be surprised if some 
one is found to say that 
' Browning told me so.' As you 
know, the place given it by 
Browning in the 'Selected 
Poems/ first in Vol. I, may be 
significant ; but, on the other 
hand, it appeared for the first 
time in ' Men and Women ' 
(1855), without distinctive 
place, namely, thirteenth, be- 
tween ' A Serenade ' and ' In- 
stans Tyrannus.' I think I 
must add that, personally, I do 
not believe, for ' exquisite rea- 
sons ' of my own, that ' My 
Star ' was written in any pecu- 
liar sense to Mrs. Browning, 
while I think scarcely any love- 
lyric he published after they 
met does not taste of her ' as the 
wine must taste of its own 
grapes.' There are things, like 
this, that are imaginatively 
dramatized out of— out and 



away from — some section of 
a mood inspired by her." 

I must add that some who 
were close to Browning write 
to me from Italy that they do 
not think "My Star" referred 
to her, because he so often used 
it in deference to requests for 
autographs. That she was his 
" Star," in a sense, we have his 
own authority for saying — in his 
letter to her postmarked No- 
vember 10,1845. "I believed," 
he says, ' ' in your glorious genius 
and knew it for a true star from 
the moment I sawit; longbefore 
I had the blessing of knowing it 
was my star, with my fortune 
and futurity in it." 1 

But we must not be con- 
fused by resemblances. A poet 
friend of mine thinks the ap- 
parent acknowledgment of in- 
feriority in the "star" of the 
poem precludes the belief that 

1 The capitals are Browning's. 
xli 



the symbol is literally applica- 
ble to the poet's wife, though it 
may have been that the thought 
of her as a star had to do with 
its origin. 

The discussion as to this 
lyric has an interest outside of 
its immediate subject, and I am 
fortunately able to share with 
my readers a letter from an- 
other poet friend, Mr. Edmund 
Gosse, of date April 17, 1905. 
"I cannot," he says, "for a 
moment consent to believe that 
' My Star ' refers to E. B. B. 
What is the analysis of the 
symbol ? Somebody or some- 
thing is like spar — an object 
hiding in a dark place, abso- 
lutely invisible to the ordinary 
gazer, but flashing (to the poet, 
— who stands or moves at a 
particular angle— ) ' now a dart 
of red, now a dart of blue.' 
The poet has discovered this 
'star,' and has praised it so 

xlii 



loudly and so long that his 
friends cluster round and 'would 
fain see it too . . .' But he can- 
not show it. It is invisible to 
any eye but his, and they must 
solace themselves with the pub- 
licity of Saturn. All this is in- 
compatible with the idea of E. 
B. B., who was a famous poet, 
extremely before the public, 
herself a ' Saturn ' long before 
R. B. knew her. 

" My own conviction," adds 
Mr. Gosse, "has always been 
that R. B. did not indicate a 
person at all by ' My Star.' I 
think he meant a certain pe- 
culiarly individual quality of 
beauty in verse, or something- 
analogous. He was sure that 
it flashed its red and blue at 
him, was a bird to him and a 
flower, but he despaired (this 
is quite an early poem) of mak- 
ing his contemporaries see it. 
They must solace themselves 

xliii 



with Wordsworth, or with Ten- 
nyson, or with the famous and 
popular E. B. B., or with the 
recognized and hieratic forms 
of aesthetic beauty. Some years 
ago, I came across by accident 
a phrase of the French sculptor 
Preault. He said : ' L'art, c'est 
cette etoile : je la vois et vous 
ne la voyez pas.' Was not R. B. 
thinking of this ? Preault was 
by a few years his senior. I 
have never made use of this, 
but I give it to you as (I think) 
important. That the Star had 
nothing whatever to do with 
E. B. B. I regard as absolutely 
certain." 

Long after her death, in the 
first stanza of the " Epilogue " 
to the " Pacchiarotto " volume, 
we have these words : 

"The poets pour us wine—" 
Said the dearest poet I ever knew, 
Dearest and greatest and best to 
me. 

xliv 



The personal note in "Pro- 
spice " is open and evident, as 
also are the references to his 
wife in " The Ring and the 
Book." As to " Prospice," — 
written in the autumn following 
his wife's death, — no nobler, 
more courageous trumpet-note 
of conviction and aspiration 
was ever uttered : no ambiguity 
here, no grotesquery of thought 
or phrase, nothing for com- 
mentator to clarify or explain. 
The height of feeling in Brown- 
ing means the height of clear 
and adequate expression. The 
passage in " The Ring and the 
Book" beginning 

O lyric Love, half angel and half bird, 

is there in all the writings of 
Browning a strain of more sat- 
isfying and exalted beauty ? If 
Keats should come again and 
a lover of Browning and of 
xlv 



Keats should wish to convince 
at a stroke the bright revenant 
of the high genius and imagi- 
nation of the later poet, what 
poem or passage would he be 
more likely to select ? And how 
exquisitely fitting it is that this 
should be so! Is it too much 
to say that nothing endears 
Browning to his readers quite 
so strongly as this one lyric 
burst of celestialpassion, spoken 
not dramatically, but with full 
and spontaneous personality? 
And here, too, is the fulfilment 
of prophecy! For in her let- 
ter to him of May 26, 1846, his 
future wife, while praising his 
dramatic art and saying that 
all are agreed that " there is 
none so great faculty as the dra- 
matic," yet is conscious of 
wishing him " to take the other 
crown besides." She desires 
him, after having made "his 
own creatures speak in clear 

xlvi 



human voices," to speak him- 
self " out of that personality 
which God made, and with 
the voice which he tuned into 
such power and sweetness of 
speech." " With an inferior 
power," she pleads, " you might 
have taken yourself closer to 
the hearts and lives of men, 
and made yourself dearer, 
though being less great. There- 
fore I do want you to do this 
with your surpassing power. 
It will be so easy to you to 
speak, and so noble when 
spoken." Noble, indeed, are 
the poems in which he speaks 
thus straightforthly and with- 
out dramatic indirection, as 
in this "lyric Love" invoca- 
tion, in " One Word More," 
in " Prospice," and (with 
many other poems) in his 
swan-song of the " Epilogue " 
to "Asplando" — this last a 
twin utterance to " Prospice," 

xlvii 



and a shout in the face of 
death. 1 

The " lyric Love " passage 
in "The Ring and the Book" 
recalls the poignant personal 
note in the invocation to Light 
at the beginning of the third 
book of "Paradise Lost." The 
lost and unreturning Light of 
the blind Milton, which, in his 
invocation, he desired should 
be replaced by the inward Ce- 
lestial Light, and Browning's 
lost companion, " half angel 
and half bird," the benediction 
of whose spirit he rapturously 
craved — these are the occasions 
of the noblest passages in the 
chief poems of the early and 
the later bard. 

The closing lines of "The 
Ring and the Book " take up 
the figure of the ring again, 

1 How characteristic that Browning's 
swan-song was a shout of defiance in the 
face of death, while Tennyson's (in Crossing 
the Bar) was one of his most musical chants. 

xlviii 



from the first book, and recur 
to the personal note— the 
" lyric Love " : 

If the rough ore be rounded to a ring! 

Render all duty which good ring 
should do, 

And failing grace, succeed in guar- 
dianship, — 

Might mine but lie outside thine, 
Lyric Love, 

Thy rare gold ring of verse (the poet 
praised) 

Linking our England to his Italy. 

This " ring of verse " was that 
referred to by the Italian poet 
Tommaseo in the inscription 
placed by the city of Florence 
on the walls of Casa Guidi, 
which in translation is : " Here 
wrote and died E. B. Browning, 
who . . . made with her golden 
verse a ring linking Italy to 
England." 1 

But there is more of his lost 

1 The Camberwell edition of Robert 
Browning : Charlotte Porter and Helen A. 
Clarke, editors. 

xlix 



wife in " The Ring and the 
Book" than the direct refer- 
ences of the poet, as is shown 
by one of the most interesting 
passages of Mrs. Orr's " Life," 
where she gives her reasons for 
believing that Mrs. Browning's 
spiritual presence with the au- 
thor was " more than a presid- 
ing memory of the heart ; that 
it entered largely into the con- 
ception of Pompilia, and, so far 
as this depended on it, the 
character of the whole book." 

A poet has said that " as for 
Browning's love for his wife, 
nothing more tender and chival- 
rous has ever been told of ideal 
lovers in an ideal romance. It 
is so beautiful a story that one 
often prefers it to the sweetest 
or loftiest poem that came from 
the lips of either." 1 True ; yet 
the lives of the two as poets 
make the story what it is. 

1 William Sharp's Life of Browning. 

1 



Their lives, indeed, were poems, 
as Milton said poets' lives 
should be, and their poetry was 
their life, as Mrs. Browning 
said should also be true of poets. 
The world could spare neither 
the lives nor the poems, and 
especially would it be poor with- 
out those poems in which each 
sang of the other. Take these 
together, was there ever, in all 
the treasury of the world's lit- 
erature, so angelical an anti- 
phony of love, anthemed by 
the two radiant and immortal 
lovers themselves? 

R. W. G. 



SONNETS FROM THE 
PORTUGUESE 



SONNETS FROM THE 
PORTUGUESE 



I thought once how Theocritus 

had sung 
Of the sweet years, the dear and 

wished-for years, 
Who each one in a gracious hand 

appears 
To bear a gift for mortals, old or 

young : 
And, as I mused it in his antique 

tongue, 
I saw, in gradual vision through 

my tears, 
The sweet, sad years, the melan- 
choly years, 
3 



Those of my own life, who by turns 

had flung 
A shadow across me. Straightway 

I was 'ware, 
So weeping, how a mystic Shape 

did move 
Behind me, and drew me backward 

by the hair ; 
And a voice said in mastery, while 

I strove,— 
Guess now who holds thee? " — 

" Death," I said. But, there, 
The silver answer rang, — " Not 

Death, but Love." 



But only three in all God's universe 
Have heard this word thou hast 

said, — Himself, beside 
Thee speaking, and me listening! 

and replied 
One of us . . . that was God, . . . 

and laid the curse 
So darkly on my eyelids, as to 

amerce 
My sight from seeing thee, — that if 

I had died, 
The deadweights, placed there, 

would have signified 
Less absolute exclusion. " Nay " 

is worse 

5 



From God than from all others, O 

my friend! 
Men could not part us with their 

worldly jars, 
Nor the seas change us, nor the 

tempests bend ; 
Our hands would touch for all the 

mountain-bars : 
And, heaven being rolled between 

us at the end, 
We should but vow the faster for 

the stars. 



Ill 



Unlike are we, unlike, O princely 

Heart! 
Unlike our uses and our destinies. 
Our ministering two angels look 

surprise 
On one another, as they strike 

athwart 
Their wings in passing. Thou, 

bethink thee, art 
A guest for queens to social 

pageantries, 
With gages from a hundred brighter 

eyes 
Than tears even can make mine, to 

play thy part 



Of chief musician. What hast 

thou to do 
With looking from the lattice-lights 

at me, 
A poor, tired, wandering singer, 

singing through 
The dark, and leaning up a cypress 

tree? 
The chrism is on thine head, — on 

mine, the dew, — 
And Death must dig the level 

where these agree. 



IV 



Thou hast thy calling to some 

palace-floor, 
Most gracious singer of high poems! 

where 
The dancers will break footing, 

from the care 
Of watching up thy pregnant lips 

for more. 
And dost thou lift this house's 

latch too poor 
For hand of thine? and canst thou 

think and bear 
To let thy music drop here un- 
aware 

9 



In folds of golden fulness at my 

door? 
Look up and see the casement 

broken in, 
The bats and owlets builders in 

the roof! 
My cricket chirps against thy man- 
dolin. 
Hush, call no echo up in further 

proof 
Of desolation! there 's a voice 

within 
That weeps ... as thou must sin£ 

. . . alone, aloof. 



I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, 

As once Electra her sepulchral urn, 

And, looking in thine eyes, I over- 
turn 

The ashes at thy feet. Behold 
and see 

What a great heap of grief lay hid 
in me, 

And how the red wild sparkles 
dimly burn 

Through the ashen greyness. If 
thy foot in scorn 

Could tread them out to darkness 
utterly, 



It might be well perhaps. But if 

instead 
Thou wait beside me for the wind 

to blow 
The grey dust up, . . . those laurels 

on thine head, 
O my Beloved, will not shield thee 

so, 
That none of all the fires shall 

scorch and shred 
The hair beneath. Stand farther 

off then! go. 



VI 



Go from me. Yet I feel that I 

shall stand 
Henceforward in thy shadow. 

Nevermore 
Alone upon the threshold of my 

door 
Of individual life, I shall command 
The uses of my soul, nor lift my 

hand 
Serenely in the sunshine as before, 
Without the sense of that which I 

forbore — 
Thy touch upon the palm. The 

widest land 

13 * 



Doom takes to part us, leaves thy 

heart in mine 
With pulses that beat double. 

What I do 
And what I dream include thee, as 

the wine 
Must taste of its own grapes. And 

when I sue 
God for myself, He hears that 

name of thine, 
And sees within my eyes the tears 

of two. 



VII 



The face of all the world is changed, 

I think, 
Since first I heard the footsteps of 

thy soul 
Move still, oh, still, beside me, as 

they stole 
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer 

brink 
Of obvious death, where I, who 

thought to sink, 
Was caught up into love, and 

taught the whole 
Of life in a new rhythm. The cup 

of dole 
God gave for baptism, I am fain 

to drink, 

is 



And praise its sweetness, Sweet, 

with thee anear. 
The names of country, heaven, are 

changed away 
For where thou art or shalt be, 

there or here ; 
And this . . . this lute and song . . . 

loved yesterday, 
(The singing angels know) are only 

dear 
Because thy name moves right in 

what they say. 



16 



VIII 



What can I give thee back, O 

liberal 
And princely giver, who hast 

brought the gold 
And purple of thine heart, un- 
stained, untold, 
And laid them on the outside of 

the wall 
For such as I to take or leave 

withal, 
In unexpected largesse? am I cold, 
Ungrateful, that for these most 

manifold 
High gifts, I render nothing back 

at all? 
2 i 7 



Not so ; not cold,— but very poor 

instead. 
Ask God who knows. For frequent 

tears have run 
The colours from my life, and left so 

dead 
And pale a stuff, it were not fitly 

done 
To give the same as pillow to thy 

head. 
Go farther! let it serve to trample 



18 



IX 



Can it be right to give what I can 

give? 
To let thee sit beneath the fall of 

tears 
As salt as mine, and hear the sigh- 
ing years 
Re-sighing on my lips renunciative 
Through those infrequent smiles 

which fail to live 
For all thy adjurations? O my 

fears, 
That this can scarce be right! We 

are not peers, 
So to be lovers ; and I own, and 

grieve, 

19 



That givers of such gifts as mine 

are, must 
Be counted with the ungenerous. 

Out, alas! 
I will not soil thy purple with my 

dust, 
Nor breathe my poison on thy 

Venice-glass, 
Nor give thee any love — which 

were unjust. 
Beloved, I only love thee ! let it 

pass. 



Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful 

indeed 
And worthy of acceptation. Fire 

is bright, 
Let temple burn, or flax ; an equal 

light 
Leaps in the flame from cedar- 
plank or weed : 
And love is fire. And when I say 

at need 
/ love thee . . . mark \ . . . I love 

thee — in thy sight 
I stand transfigured, glorified aright, 
With conscience of the new rays 

that proceed 



Out of my face toward thine. 
There 's nothing low 

In love, when love the lowest: 
meanest creatures 

Who love God, God accepts while 
loving so. 

And what I feel, across the inferior 
features 

Of what I am, doth flash itself, and 
show 

How that great work of Love en- 
hances Nature's. 



XI 



And therefore if to love can be 

desert, 
I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as 

pale 
As these you see, and trembling 

knees that fail 
To bear the burden of a heavy 

heart, — 
This weary minstrel-life that once 

was girt 
To climb Aornus, and can scarce 

avail 
To pipe now 'gainst the valley 

nightingale 
A melancholy music, — why advert 
2 3 



To these things? O Beloved, it is 
plain 

I am not of thy worth nor for thy 
place ! 

And yet, because I love thee, I 
obtain 

From that same love this vindicat- 
ing grace, 

To live on still in love, and yet in 
vain, — 

To bless thee, yet renounce thee . 
to thy face. 



24 



XII 



Indeed this very love which is my 

boast, 
And which, when rising up from 

breast to brow, 
Doth crown me with a ruby large 

enow 
To draw men's eyes and prove the 

inner cost, — 
This love even, all my worth, to 

the uttermost, 
I should not love withal, unless 

that thou 
Hadst set me an example, shown 

me how, 
When first thine earnest eyes with 

mine were crossed, 
25 



And love called love. And thus, I 

cannot speak 
Of love even, as a good thing of 

my own : 
Thy soul hath snatched up mine 

all faint and weak, 
And placed it by thee on a golden 

throne, — 
And that I love (O soul, we must 

be meek ! ) 
Is by thee only, whom I love alone. 



26 



XIII 



And wilt thou have me fashion 

into speech 
The love I bear thee, finding words 

enough, 
And hold the torch out, while the 

winds are rough, 
Between our faces, to cast light on 

each? — 
I drop it at thy feet. I cannot 

teach 
My hand to hold my spirit so far 

off 
From myself— me— that I should 

bring thee proof 
In words, of love hid in me out of 

reach. 

27 



Nay, let the silence of my woman- 
hood 

Commend my woman-love to thy 
belief,— 

Seeing that I stand unwon, how- 
ever wooed, 

And rend the garment of my life, 
in brief, 

By a most dauntless, voiceless for- 
titude, 

Lest one touch of this heart convey 
its grief. 



28 



XIV 

If thou must love me, let it be for 

nought 
Except for love's sake only. Do 

not say 
1 1 love her for her smile — her look 

—her way 
Of speaking gently, — for a trick of 

thought 
That falls in well with mine, and 

certes brought 
A sense of pleasant ease on such a 

day" — 
For these things in themselves, 

Beloved, may 
Be changed, or change for thee,— 

and love, so wrought, 
29 



May be unwrought so. Neither 

love me for 
Thine own dear pity's wiping my 

cheeks dry,— 
A creature might forget to weep, 

who bore 
Thy comfort long, and lose thy 

love thereby! 
But love me for love's sake, that 

evermore 
Thou may'st love on, through love's 

eternity. 



30 



XV 



Accuse me not, beseech thee, that 

I wear 
Too calm and sad a face in front 

of thine ; 
For we two look two ways, and 

cannot shine 
With the same sunlight on our brow 

and hair. 
On me thou lookest with no doubt- 
ing care, 
As on a bee shut in a crystalline ; 
Since sorrow hath shut me safe in 

love's divine, 
And to spread wing and fly in the 

outer air 

31 



Were most impossible failure, if I 

strove 
To fail so. But I look on thee — 

on thee — 
Beholding, besides love, the end of 

love, 
Hearing oblivion beyond memory ; 
As one who sits and gazes from 

above, 
Over the rivers to the bitter sea. 



3 2 



XVI 



And yet, because thou overcomest 

so, 
Because thou art more noble and 

like a king, 
Thou canst prevail against my fears 

and fling 
Thy purple round me, till my heart 

shall grow 
Too close against thine heart 

henceforth to know 
How it shook when alone. Why, 

conquering 
May prove as lordly and complete 

a thing 
In lifting upward, as in crushing 

low! 
3 33 



And as a vanquished soldier yields 
his sword 

To one who lifts him from the 
bloody earth, 

Even so, Beloved, I at last record, 

Here ends my strife. If thou in- 
vite me forth, 

I rise above abasement at the 
word. 

Make thy love larger to enlarge my 
worth. 



34 



XVII 



My poet, thou canst touch on all 

the notes 
God set between His Ajfter and 

Before, 
And strike up and strike off the 

general roar 
Of the rushing worlds a melody 

that floats 
In a serene air purely. Antidotes 
Of medicated music, answering for 
Mankind's forlornest uses-, thou 

canst pour 
From thence into their ears. God's 

will devotes 

35 



Thine to such ends, and mine to 
wait on thine. 

How, Dearest, wilt thou have me 
for most use? 

A hope, to sing by gladly? or a 
fine 

Sad memory, with thy songs to in- 
terfuse? 

A shade, in which to sing — of palm 
or pine? 

A grave, on which to rest from 
singing? Choose. 



XVIII 



I never gave a lock of hair away 

To a man, Dearest, except this to 
thee, 

Which now upon my fingers 
thoughtfully, 

I ring out to the full brown length 
and say 
u Take it." My day of youth went 
yesterday ; 

My hair no longer bounds to my 
foot's glee, 

Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle- 
tree, 

As girls do, any more : it only may 

37 



Now shade on two pale cheeks the 

mark of tears, 
Taught drooping from the head 

that hangs aside 
Through sorrow's trick. I thought 

the funeral-shears 
Would take this first, but Love is 

justified, — 
Take it thou, — finding pure, from 

all those years, 
The kiss my mother left here when 

she died. 



33 



XIX 



The soul's Rialto hath its merchan- 
dise ; 
I barter curl for curl upon that 

mart, 
And from my poet's forehead to 

my heart 
Receive this lock which outweighs 

argosies, — 
As purply black, as erst to Pindar's 

eyes 
The dim purpureal tresses gloomed 

athwart 
The nine white Muse-brows. For 

this counterpart, . . . 
The bay-crown's shade, Beloved, I 

surmise, 

39 



Still lingers on thy curl, it is so 

black! 
Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing 

breath, 
I tie the shadows safe from gliding 

back, 
And lay the gift where nothing hin- 

dereth ; 
Here on my heart, as on thy brow, 

to lack 
No natural heat till mine grows 

cold in death. 



40 



XX 



Beloved, my Beloved, when I 

think 
That thou wast in the world a year 

ago, 
What time I sat alone here in the 

snow 
And saw no footprint, heard the 

silence sink 
No moment at thy voice, but, link 

by link, 
Went counting all my chains as if 

that so 
They never could fall off at any 

blow 
Struck by thy possible hand, — why, 

thus I drink 
41 



Of life's great cup of wonder! 

Wonderful, 
Never to feel thee thrill the day or 

night 
With personal act or speech, — nor 

ever cull 
Some prescience of thee with the 

blossoms white 
Thou sawest growing! Atheists 

are as dull, 
Who cannot guess God's presence 

out of sight. 



42 



XXI 



Say over again, and yet once over 

again, 
That thou dost love me. Though 

the word repeated 
Should seem "a cuckoo-song," as 

thou dost treat it, 
Remember, never to the hill or 

plain, 
Valley and wood, without her 

cuckoo-strain 
Comes the fresh Spring in all her 

green completed. 
Beloved, I, amid the darkness 

greeted 
By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that 

doubt's pain 
43 



Cry, "Speak once more — thou 
lovest!" Who can fear 

Too many stars, though each in 
heaven shall roll, 

Too many flowers, though each 
shall crown the year? 

Say thou dost love me, love me, 
love me— toll 

The silver iterance! — only mind- 
ing, Dear, 

To love me also in silence with thy 
soul. 



44 



XXII 



When our two souls stand up erect 
and strong, 

Face to face, silent, drawing nigh 
and nigher, 

Until the lengthening wings break 
into fire 

At either curved point,— what bit- 
ter wrong 

Can the earth do to us, that we 
should not long 

Be here contented? Think. In 
mounting higher, 

The angels would press on us and 
aspire 

To drop some golden orb of per- 
fect song 

45 



Into our deep, dear silence. Let 

us stay- 
Rather on earth, Beloved, — where 

the unfit 
Contrarious moods of men recoil 

away 
And isolate pure spirits, and permit 
A place to stand and love in for a 

day, 
With darkness and the death-hour 

rounding it. 



46 



XXIII 

Is it indeed so? If I lay here 

dead, 
Wouldst thou miss any life in losing 

mine? 
And would the sun for thee more 

coldly shine 
Because of grave-damps falling 

round my head? 
I marvelled, my Beloved, when I 

read 
Thy thought so in the letter. I am 

thine — 
But . . . so much to thee? Can I 

pour thy wine 
While my hands tremble? Then 

my soul, instead 

47 



Of dreams of death, resumes life's 
lower range. 

Then, love me, Love! Look on 
me— breathe on me! 

As brighter ladies do not count it 
strange, 

For love, to give up acres and de- 
gree, 

I yield the grave for thy sake, and 
exchange 

My near sweet view of Heaven, for 
earth with thee! 



4 s 



XXIV 



Let the world's sharpness, like a 

clasping knife, 
Shut in upon itself and do no harm 
In this close hand of Love, now 

soft and warm, 
And let us hear no sound of human 

strife 
After the click of the shutting. 

Life to life — 
I lean upon thee, Dear, without 

alarm, 
And feel as safe as guarded by a 

charm 

Against the stab of worldlings, who 

if rife 
4 49 



Are weak to injure. Very whitely 

still 
The lilies of our lives may reassure 
Their blossoms from their roots, 

accessible 
Alone to heavenly dews that drop 

not fewer ; 
Growing straight, out of man's 

reach, on the hill. 
God only, who made us rich, can 

make us poor. 



50 



XXV 

A heavy heart, Beloved, have I 

borne 
From year to year until I saw thy 

face, 
And sorrow after sorrow took the 

place 
Of all those natural joys as lightly 

worn 
As the stringed pearls, each lifted 

in its turn 
By a beating heart at dance-time. 

Hopes apace 
Were changed to long despairs, till 

God's own grace 
Could scarcely lift above the world 

forlorn 

5i 



My heavy heart. Then thou didst 
bid me bring 

And let it drop adown thy calmly 
great 

Deep being! Fast it sinketh, as a 
thing 

Which its own nature doth precipi- 
tate, 

While thine doth close above it, 
mediating 

Betwixt the stars and the unaccom- 
plished fate. 



52 



XXVI 



I lived with visions for my com- 
pany 
Instead of men and women, years 

ago, 
And found them gentle mates, nor 

thought to know 
A sweeter music than they played 

to me. 
But soon their trailing purple was 

not free 
Of this world's dust, their lutes did 

silent grow, 
And I myself grew faint and blind 

below 
Their vanishing eyes. Then thou 

didst come— to be, 
53 



Beloved, what they seemed. Their 
shining fronts, 

Their songs, their splendours (bet- 
ter, yet the same, 

As river-water hallowed into fonts), 

Met in thee, and from out thee 
overcame 

My soul with satisfaction of all 
wants : 

Because God's gifts put man's best 
dreams to shame. 



54 



XXVII 



My own Beloved, who hast lifted 

me 
From this drear flat of earth where 

I was thrown, 
And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, 

blown 
A life-breath, till the forehead hope- 
fully 
Shines out again, as all the angels 

see, 
Before thy saving kiss! My own, 

my own, 
Who earnest to me when the world 

was gone, 
And I who looked for only God, 

found thee / 

55 



I find thee ; I am safe, and strong, 
and glad. 

As one who stands in dewless 
asphodel 

Looks backward on the tedious 
time he had 

In the upper life, — so I, with 
bosom-swell, 

Make witness, here, between the 
good and bad, 

That Love, as strong as Death, re- 
trieves as well. 



56 



XXVIII 



My letters! all dead paper, mute 

and white! 
And yet they seem alive and quiv- 
ering 
Against my tremulous hands which 

loose the string 
And let them drop down on my 

knee to-night, 
This said,— he wished to have me 

in his sight 
Once, as a friend : this fixed a day 

in spring 
To come and touch my hand . . . 

a simple thing, 
Yet I wept for it! —this, ... the 

paper 's light . . . 
57 



Said, Dear, I love thee ; and I sank 

and quailed 
As if God's future thundered on 

my past. 
This said, I am thine — and so its 

ink has paled 
With lying at my heart that beat 

too fast. 
And this . . . O Love, thy words 

have ill availed 
If, what this said, I dared repeat at 

last! 



58 



XXIX 



I think of thee! —my thoughts do 

twine and bud 
About thee, as wild vines, about a 

tree, 
Put out broad leaves, and soon 

there 's nought to see 
Except the straggling green which 

hides the wood. 
Yet, O my palm-tree, be it under- 
stood 
I will not have my thoughts instead 

of thee 
Who art dearer, better! Rather, 

instantly 
ReneV thy presence ; as a strong 

tree should, 
59 



Rustle thy boughs and set thy 
trunk all bare, 

And let these bands of greenery 
which insphere thee 

Drop heavily down,— burst, shat- 
tered, everywhere! 

Because, in this deep joy to see 
and hear thee 

And breathe within thy shadow a 
new air, 

I do not think of thee— I am too 
near thee. 



hO 



XXX 



I see thine image through my tears 

to-night, 
And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. 

How 
Refer the cause? — Beloved, is it 

thou 
Or I, who makes me sad? The 

acolyte 
Amid the chanted joy and thankful 

rite 
May so fall flat, with pale insensate 

brow 
On the altar-stair. I hear thy 

voice and vow, 
Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art 

out of sight, 
61 



As he, in his swooning ears, the 

choir's amen. 
Beloved, dost thou love? or did I 

see all 
The glory as I dreamed, and fainted 

when 
Too vehement light dilated my 

ideal, 
For my soul's eyes? Will that 

light come again, 
As now these tears come — falling 

hot and real? 



62 



XXXI 



Thou comest ! all is said without 

a word. 
I sit beneath thy looks, as children 

do' 
In the noon-sun, with souls that 

tremble through 
Their happy eyelids from an un- 

averred 
Yet prodigal inward joy. Behold, 

I erred 
In that last doubt ! and yet I can- 
not rue 
The sin most, but the occasion — 

that we two 
Should for a moment stand unmin- 

istered 

63 



By a mutual presence. Ah, keep 
near and close, 

Thou dovelike help ! and, when 
my fears would rise, 

With thy broad heart serenely in- 
terpose : 

Brood down with thy divine suf- 
ficiencies 

These thoughts which tremble 
when bereft of those, 

Like callow birds left desert to the 
skies. 



64 



XXXII 



The first time that the sun rose on 

thine oath 
To love me, I looked forward to 

the moon 
To slacken all those bonds which 

seemed too soon 
And quickly tied to make a lasting 

troth. 
Quick-loving hearts, I thought, 

may quickly loathe ; 
And, looking on myself, I seemed 

not one 
For such man's love! — more like 

an out-of-tune 
Worn viol, a good singer would be 

wroth 
5 65 



To spoil his song with, and which, 
snatched in haste, 

Is laid down at the first ill-sounding 
note. 

I did not wrong myself so, but I 
placed 

A wrong on thee. For perfect 
strains may float 

'Neath master-hands, from instru- 
ments defaced, — 

And great souls, at one stroke, may 
do and doat. 






66 



XXXIII 



Yes, call me by my pet-name ! 

let me hear 
The name I used to run at, when 

a child, 
From innocent play, and leave the 

cowslips piled, 
To glance up in some face that 

proved me dear 
With the look of its eyes. I miss 

the clear 
Fond voices which, being drawn 

and reconciled 
Into the music of Heaven's unde- 
nted, 
Call me no longer. Silence on the 

bier, 

6 7 



While I call God— call God ! —So 
let thy mouth 

Be heir to those who are now ex- 
animate. 

Gather the north flowers to com- 
plete the south, 

And catch the early love up in the 
late. 

Yes, call me by that name, — and I, 
in truth, 

With the same heart, will answer 
and not wait. 



63 



XXXIV 



With the same heart, I said, I '11 

answer thee 
As those, when thou shalt call me 

by my name— 
Lo, the vain promise ! is the same, 

the same, 
Perplexed and ruffled by life's 

strategy ? 
When called before, I told how 

hastily 
I dropped my flowers or brake off 

from a game, 
To run and answer with the smile 

that came 
At play last moment, and went on 

with me 

69 



Through my obedience. When I 

answer now, 
I drop a grave thought, break from 

solitude ; 
Yet still my heart goes to thee— 

ponder how — 
Not as to a single good, but all my 

good ! 
Lay thy hand on it, best one, and 

allow 
That no child's foot could run fast 

as this blood. 



7 o 



XXXV 



If I leave all for thee, wilt thou 

exchange 
And be all to me? Shall I never 

miss 
Home-talk and blessing and the 

common kiss 
That comes to each in turn, nor 

count it strange, 
When I look up, to drop on a new 

range 
Of walls and floors, another home 

than this? 
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me 

which is 
Filled by dead eyes too tender to 

know change? 
71 



That 's hardest. If to conquer love, 

has tried, 
To conquer grief, tries more, as all 

things prove ; 
For grief indeed is love and grief 

beside. 
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard 

to love. 
Yet love me — wilt thou? Open 

thine heart wide, 
And fold within the wet wings of 

thy dove. 



7- 



XXXVI 



When we met first and loved, I did 

not build 
Upon the event with marble. Could 

it mean 
To last, a love set pendulous be- 
tween 
Sorrow and sorrow ? Nay, I rather 

thrilled, 
Distrusting every light that seemed 

to gild 
The onward path, and feared to 

overlean 
A finger even. And, though I have 

grown serene 
And strong since then, I think that 

God has willed 
73 



A still renewable fear . . . O love, 
O troth . . . 

Lest these enclasped hands should 
never hold, 

This mutual kiss drop down be- 
tween us both 

As an unowned thing, once the lips 
being cold. 

And Love, be false ! if he, to keep 
one oath, 

Must lose one joy, by his life's star 
foretold. 



74 



XXXVII 



Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul 

should make, 
Of all that strong divineness which 

I know 
For thine and thee, an image only 

so 
Formed of the sand, and fit to shift 

and break. 
It is that distant years which did 

not take 
Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow, 
Have forced my swimming brain 

to undergo 
Their doubt and dread, and blindly 

to forsake 

75 



Thy purity of likeness and distort 

Thy worthiest love to a worthless 
counterfeit : 

As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in 
port, 

His guardian sea-god to commem- 
orate, 

Should set a sculptured porpoise, 
gills a-snort 

And vibrant tail, within the temple- 
gate. 



XXXVIII 



First time he kissed me, he but 

only kissed 
The fingers of this hand wherewith 

I write ; 
And ever since, it grew more clean 

and white, 
Slow to world-greetings, quick with 

its " Oh, list," 
When the angels speak. A ring of 

amethyst 
I could not wear here, plainer to 

my sight, 
Than that first kiss. The second 

passed in height 
The first, and sought the forehead, 

and half missed, 
77 



Half falling on the hair. O beyond 

meed ! 
That was the chrism of love, which 

love's own crown, 
With sanctifying sweetness, did 

precede. 
The third upon my lips was folded 

down 
In perfect, purple state ; since when, 

indeed, 
I have been proud and said, " My 

love, my own." 



73 



XXXIX 



Because thou hast the power and 

own'st the grace 
To look through and behind this 

mask of me 
(Against which years have beat 

thus blanchingly 
With their rains), and behold my 

soul's true face, 
The dim and weary witness of life's 

race, — 
Because thou hast the faith and 

love to see, 
Through that same soul's distract- 
ing lethargy, 
The patient angel waiting for a 

place 

79 



In the new Heavens, — because nor 

sin nor woe, 
Nor God's infliction, nor death's 

neighbourhood, 
Nor all which others viewing, turn 

to go, 
Nor all which makes me tired of 

all, self-viewed, — 
Nothing repels thee, . . . Dearest, 

teach me so 
To pour out gratitude, as thou 

dost, good ! 



80 



XL 



Oh, yes ! they love through all this 

world of ours ! 
I will not gainsay love, called love 

forsooth. 
I have heard love talked in my 

early youth, 
And since, not so long back but 

that the flowers 
Then gathered, smell still. Mus- 
sulmans and Giaours 
Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and 

have no ruth 
For any weeping. Polypheme's 

white tooth 
Slips on the nut if, after frequent 

showers, 
6 81 



The shell is over-smooth,— and not 

so much 
Will turn the thing called love, 

aside to hate 
Or else to oblivion. But thou art 

not such 
A lover, my Beloved ! thou canst 

wait 
Through sorrow and sickness, to 

bring souls to touch, 
And think it soon when others cry 

"Too late." 



XLI 



I thank all who have loved me in 

their hearts, 
With thanks and love from mine. 

Deep thanks to all 
Who paused a little near the prison- 
wall 
To hear my music in its louder 

parts 
Ere they went onward, each one 

to the mart's 
Or temple's occupation, beyond 

call. 
But thou, who, in my voice's sink 

and fall 
When the sob took it, thy divinest 

Art's 

83 



Own instrument didst drop down 

at thy foot 
To hearken what I said between 

my tears, . . . 
Instruct me how to thank thee ! 

Oh, to shoot 
My soul's full meaning into future 

years, 
That they should lend it utterance, 

and salute 
Love that endures, from Life that 

disappears ! 



S4 



XLII 



:< My future will not copy fair my 

past" — 
I wrote that once ; and thinking at 

my side 
My ministering life-angel justified 
The word by his appealing look 

upcast 
To the white throne of God, I 

turned at last, 
And there, instead, saw thee, not 

unallied 
To angels in thy soul ! Then I, 

long tried 
By natural ills, received the com- 
fort fast, 

85 



While budding, at thy sight, my 
pilgrim's staff 

Gave out green leaves with morn- 
ing dews impearled. 

I seek no copy now of life's first 
half: 

Leave here the pages with long 
musing curled, 

And write me new my future's epi- 
graph, 

New angel mine, unhoped for in 
the world ! 



86 



XLIII 



How do I love thee? Let me 

count the ways. 
I love thee to the depth and 

breadth and height 
My soul can reach, when feeling 

out of sight 
For the ends of Being and ideal 

Grace. 
I love thee to the level of everyday's 
Most quiet need, by sun and candle- 
light. 
I love thee freely, as men strive for 

Right ; 
I love thee purely, as they turn 

from Praise. 
87 



I love thee with the passion put to 

use 
In my old griefs, and with my 

childhood's faith. 
I love thee with a love I seemed to 

lose 
With my lost saints, — I love thee 

with the breath, 
Smiles, tears, of all my life ! —and, 

if God choose, 
I shall but love thee better after 

death. 



83 



XLIV 



Beloved, thou hast brought me 

many flowers 
Plucked in the garden, all the sum- 
mer through 
And winter, and it seemed as if 

they grew 
In this close room, nor missed the 

sun and showers. 
So, in the like name of that love of 

ours, 
Take back these thoughts which 

here unfolded too, 
And which on warm and cold days 

I withdrew 
From my heart's ground. Indeed, 

those beds and bowers 
8 9 



Be overgrown with bitter weeds 

and rue, 
And wait thy weeding ; yet here 's 

eglantine, 
Here 's ivy ! — take them, as I used 

to do 
Thy flowers, and keep them where 

they shall not pine. 
Instruct thine eyes to keep their 

colours true, 
And tell thy soul, their roots are left 

in mine. 



9 o 



SIX LYRICS 



LIFE AND LOVE 



Fast this Life of mine was dying, 
Blind already and calm as 
death, 

Snowflakes on her bosom lying 
Scarcely heaving with her breath. 



Love came by, and having known 

her 

In a dream of fabled lands, 

Gently stooped, and laid upon her 

Mystic chrism of holy hands ; 

93 



Ill 

Drew his smile across her folded 
Eyelids, as the swallow dips ; 

Breathed as finely as the cold did, 
Through the locking of her lips. 

IV 

So, when Life looked upward, 
being 
Warmed and breathed on from 
above, 
What sight could she have for 
seeing, 
Evermore . . . but only Love ? 



94 



A DENIAL 

i 

We have met late — it is too late 
to meet, 
friend, not more than friend! 
Death's forecome shroud is tangled 

round my feet, 
And if I step or stir, I touch the 
end. 
In this last jeopardy 
Can I approach thee, I, who can- 
not move ? 
How shall I answer thy request for 
love ? 
Look in my face and see. 

95 



II 
I love thee not, I dare not love 
thee ! go 
In silence ; drop my hand. 
If thou seek roses, seek them 

where they blow 
In garden-alleys, not in desert-sand. 

Can life and death agree, 
That thou shouldst stoop thy song 

to my complaint ? 
I cannot love thee. If the word 
is faint, 
Look in my face and see. 

in 
I might have loved thee in some 
former days. 
Oh, then, my spirits had leapt 
As now they sink, at hearing thy 

love-praise! 
Before these faded cheeks were 
overwept, 

96 



Had this been asked of me, 
To love thee with my whole stroiij 

heart and head, — 
I should have said still . . . yes, 

but smiled and said, 
" Look in my face and see ! " 



IV 

But now . . . God sees me, God, 

who took my heart 
And drowned it in life's surge. 
In all your wide warm earth I 

have no part — 
A light song overcomes me like a 

dirge. 
Could Love's great harmony 
The saints keep step to when their 

bonds are loose, 
Not weigh me down ? am / a 

wife to choose ? 

Look in my face and see — 
7 97 



V 

While I behold, as plain as one 
who dreams, 
Some woman of full worth, 
Whose voice, as cadenced as a 

silver stream's, 
Shall prove the fountain-soul which 
sends it forth ; 
One younger, more thought-free 
And fair and gay, than I, thou 

must forget, 
With brighter eyes than these . . . 
which are not wet . . . 
Look in my face and see! 

VI 

So farewell thou, whom I have 
known too late 
To let thee come so near. 
Be counted happy while men call 

thee great, 
And one beloved woman feels thee 
dear! — 

98 



Not I! — that cannot be. 
I am lost, I am changed, — I must 

go farther, where 
The change shall take me worse, 
and no one dare 
Look in my face and see. 

VII 

Meantime I bless thee. By these 
thoughts of mine 
I bless thee from all such! 
I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to 

wine, 
Thy hearth to joy, thy hand to an 
equal touch 
Of loyal troth. For me, 
I love thee not, I love thee not! — 

away! 
Here 's no more courage in my 

soul to say 
" Look in my face and see." 



99 

LefC. 



PROOF AND DISPROOF 



Dost thou love me, my Beloved? 

Who shall answer yes or no? 
What is proved or disproved 

When my soul inquireth so, 
Dost thou love me, my Beloved? 



I have seen thy heart to-day, 
Never open to the crowd, 

While to love me aye and aye 
Was the vow as it was vowed 

By thine eyes of steadfast grey. 



Ill 

Now I sit alone, alone— 

And the hot tears break and burn. 
Now, Beloved, thou art gone, 

Doubt and terror have their turn. 
Is it love that I have known? 

IV 

I have known some bitter things,— 
Anguish, anger, solitude. 

Year by year an evil brings, 
Year by year denies a good ; 

March winds violate my springs. 



I have known how sickness bends, 
I have known how sorrow 
breaks, — 

How quick hopes have sudden ends, 
How the heart thinks till it aches 

Of the smile of buried friends. 



VI 

Last, I have known thee, my brave 
Noble thinker, lover, doer ! 

The best knowledge last I have. 
But thou comest as the thrower 

Of fresh flowers upon a grave. 

VII 

Count what feelings used to move 
me ! 

Can this love assort with those? 
Thou, who art so far above me, 

Wilt thou stoop so, for repose? 
Is it true that thou canst love me? 

VIII 

Do not blame me if I doubt thee. 

I can call love by its name 
When thine arm is wrapt about me ; 

But even love seems not the same, 
When I sit alone, without thee. 

I02 



IX 

In thy clear eyes I descried 
Many a proof of love, to-day ; 

But to-night, those unbelied 

Speechful eyes being gone away, 

There 's the proof to seek, beside. 



Dost thou love me, my Beloved? 

Only thou canst answer yes ! 
And, thou gone, the proof 's dis- 
proved, 

And the cry rings answerless — 
Dost thbu love me, my Beloved? 



103 



QUESTION AND ANSWER 



Love you seek for, presupposes 

Summer heat and sunny glow. 
Tell me, do you find moss-roses 

Budding, blooming in the snow? 
Snow might kill the rose-tree's 

root- 
Shake it quickly from your foot, 
Lest it harm you as you go. 

ii 

From the ivy where it dapples 
A grey ruin, stone by stone, 

Do you look for grapes or apples, 
Or for sad green leaves alone? 

Pluck the leaves off, two or three — 

Keep them for morality 

When you shall be safe and gone. 
104 



INCLUSIONS 



Oh, wilt thou have my hand, Dear, 

to lie along in thine? 
As a little stone in a running stream, 

it seems to lie and pine. 
Now drop the poor pale hand, Dear, 

unfit to plight with thine. 



Oh, wilt thou have my cheek, Dear, 
drawn closer to thine own? 

My cheek is white, my cheek is worn, 
by many a tear run down. 

Now leave a little space, Dear, lest 

it should wet thine own. 

105 



Ill 

Oh, must thou have my soul, Dear, 
commingled with thy soul? — 

Red grows the cheek, and warm the 
hand ; the part is in the whole : 

Nor hands nor cheeks keep separate, 
when soul is joined to soul. 



106 



INSUFFICIENCY 



i 

There is no one beside thee and 
no one above thee, 
Thou standest alone as the 

nightingale sings ! 
And my words that would praise 
thee are impotent things, 
For none can express thee though 
all should approve thee. 
I love thee so, Dear, that I only 
can love thee. 
107 



Say, what can I do for thee? weary 
thee, grieve thee? 
Lean on thy shoulder, new bur- 
dens to add? 
Weep my tears over thee, making 
thee sad? 
Oh, hold me not — love me not ! let 
me retrieve thee. 
I love thee so, Dear, that I only 
can leave thee. 



108 




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ONE WORD MORE 

PROSPICE 
"O LYRIC LOVE" 

BY 
ROBERT BROWNING 



ONE WORD MORE 

To E. B. B. 

London, September, iSjj 



There they are, my fifty men and 

women 
Naming me the fifty poems -finished ! 
Take them, Love, the book and me 

together : 
Where the heart lies, let the brain 

lie also. 

ii 

Rafael made a century of sonnets, 
Made and wrote them in a certain 
volume 

in 



Dinted with the silver-pointed 
pencil 

Else he only used to draw Ma- 
donnas : 

These, the world might view — but 
one, the volume. 

Who that one, you ask? Your 
heart instructs you. 

Did she live and love it all her 
lifetime? 

Did she drop, his lady of the son- 
nets, 

Die, and Jet it drop beside her 
pillow 

Where it lay in place of Rafael's 
glory, 

Rafael's cheek so duteous and so 

loving- 
Cheek, the world was wont to hail 
a painter's, 

Rafael's cheek, her love had turned 
a poet's? 



Ill 

You and I would rather read that 

volume, 
(Taken to his beating bosom by it) 
Lean and list the bosom-beats of 

Rafael, 
Would we not? than wonder at 

Madonnas — 
Her, San Sisto names, and Her, 

Foligno, 
Her, that visits Florence in a vision. 
Her, that 's left with lilies in the 

Louvre — 
Seen by us and all the world in 

circle. 

IV 

You and I will never read that 

volume. 
Guido Reni, like his own eye's 

apple 

8 113 



Guarded long the treasure-book 

and loved it. 
Guido Reni dying, all Bologna 
Cried, and the world cried too, 

" Ours, the treasure ! " 
Suddenly, as rare things will, it 

vanished. 



Dante once prepared to paint an 

angel : 
Whom to please? You whisper 

" Beatrice." 
While he mused and traced it and 

retraced it, 
(Perad venture with a pen corroded 
Still by drops of that hot ink he 

dipped for, 
When, his left-hand i' the hair o' 

the wicked, 
Back he held the brow and pricked 

its stigma, 

114 



Bit into the live man's flesh for 
parchment, 

Loosed him, laughed to see the 
writing rankle, 

Let the wretch go festering 
through Florence) — 

Dante, who loved well because he 
hated, 

Hated wickedness that hinders 
loving, 

Dante standing, studying his 
angel,— 

In there broke the folk of his 
Inferno. 

Says he — " Certain people of im- 
portance " 

(Such he gave his daily dreadful 
line to) 

Entered and would seize, for- 
sooth, the poet." 

Says the poet— "Then I stopped 
my painting." 
"5 



VI 

You and I would rather see that 

angel, 
Painted by the tenderness of 

Dante, 
Would we not ?— than read a fresh 

Inferno. 

VII 

You and I will never see that pic- 
ture. 

While he mused on love and Bea- 
trice, 

While he softened o'er his outlined 
angel, 

In they broke, those " people of 
importance :" 

We and Bice bear the loss forever. 

VIII 

What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's 
picture ? 

116 



This : no artist lives and loves, that 

longs not 
Once, and only once, and for one 

only, 
(Ah, the prize! ) to find his love a 

language 
Fit and fair and simple and suffi- 
cient- 
Using nature that 's an art to 

others, 
Not, this one time, art that 's 

turned his nature. 
Ay, of all the artists living, loving, 
None but would forego his proper 

dowry, — 
Does he paint ? he fain would 

write a poem, — 
Does he write ? he fain would 

paint a picture, 
Put to proof art alien to the artist's, 
Once, and only once, and for one 

only, 

117 



So to be the man and leave the 
artist, 

Gain the man's joy, miss the ar- 
tist's sorrow. 

IX 

Wherefore ? Heaven's gift 
takes earth's abatement! 

He who smites the rock and 
spreads the water, 

Bidding drink and live a crowd 
beneath him, 

Even he, the minute makes immor- 
tal, 

Proves, perchance, but mortal in 
the minute, 

Desecrates, belike, the deed in 
doing. 

While he smites, how can he but 
remember, 

So he smote before, in such a 
peril, 

118 



When they stood and mocked — 

" Shall smiting help us ? " 
When they drank and sneered — 

" A stroke is easy ! " 
When they wiped their mouths and 

went their journey, 
Throwing him for thanks — "But 

drought was pleasant." 
Thus old memories mar the actual 

triumph ; 
Thus the doing savours of dis- 
relish ; 
Thus achievement lacks a gracious 

somewhat ; 
O'er-importuned brows becloud 

the mandate, 
Carelessness or consciousness — the 

gesture. 
For he bears an ancient wrong 

about him, 
Sees and knows again those pha- 

lanxed faces, 
119 



Hears, yet one time more, the 'cus- 
tomed prelude — 
" How shouldst thou, of all men, 
smite, and save us ? " 
Guesses what is like to prove the 
sequel — 
"Egypt's flesh-pots— nay, the 
drought was better." 



Oh, the crowd must have emphatic 

warrant ! 
Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven 

brilliance, 
Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's 

imperial fiat. 
Never dares the man put off the 

prophet. 

XI 

Did he love one face from out the 

thousands, 

1 20 



(Were she Jethro's daughter, white 

and wifely, 
Were she but the Ethiopian 

bondslave,) 
He would envy you dumb patient 

camel, 
Keeping a reserve of scanty water 
Meant to save his own life in the 

desert ; 
Ready in the desert to deliver 
(Kneeling down to let his breast 

be opened) 
Hoard and life together for his 

mistress. 

XII 

I shall never, in the years remain- 
ing, 

Paint you pictures, no, nor carve 
you statues, 

Make you music that should all- 
express me ; 



So it seems : I stand on my attain- 
ment. 

This of verse alone, one life allows 
me ; 

Verse and nothing else have I to 
give you. 

Other heights in other lives, God 
willing : 

All the gifts from all the heights, 
your own, Love! 

XIII 

Yet a semblance of resource avails 

us- 
Shade so finely touched, love's 

sense must seize it. 
Take these lines, look lovingly and 

nearly, 
Lines I write the first time and the 

last time. 
He who works in fresco, steals a 

hair-brush, 

122 



Curbs the liberal hand, subservient 
proudly, 

Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in 
little, 

Makes a strange art of an art fa- 
miliar, 

Fills his lady's missal-marge with 
flowerets. 

He who blows through bronze, 
may breathe through silver, 

Fitly serenade a slumbrous prin- 
cess. 

He who writes, may write for once 
as I do. 

XIV 

Love, you saw me gather men and 

women, 
Live or dead or fashioned by my 

fancy, 
Enter each and all, and use their 

service, 

123 



Speak from every mouth,— the 
speech, a poem. 

Hardly shall I tell my joys and 
sorrows, 

Hopes and fears, belief and disbe- 
lieving : 

I am mine and yours — the rest be 
all men's, 

Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the 
fifty. 

Let me speak this once in my true 
person, 

Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea, 

Though the fruit of speech be just 
this sentence : 

Pray you, look on these my men 
and women, 

Take and keep my fifty poems fin- 
ished ; 

Where my heart lies, let my brain 
lie also! 

Poor the speech ; be how I speak, 
for all things. 
124 



XV 



Not but that you know me! Lo, 
the moon's self! 

Here in London, yonder late in 
Florence, 

Still we find her face, the thrice- 
transfigured. 

Curving on a sky imbrued with 
colour, 

Drifted over Fiesole by twilight, 

Came she, our new crescent of a 
hair's-breadth. 

Full she flared it, lamping Sammi- 
niato, 

Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and 
rounder, 

Perfect till the nightingales ap- 
plauded. 

Now, a piece of her old self, impov- 
erished, 

Hard to greet, she traverses the 
house-roofs, 

125 



Hurries with unhandsome thrift of 

silver, 
Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish. 

XVI 

What, there 's nothing in the moon 

noteworthy? 
Nay : for if that moon could love 

a mortal, 
Use, to charm him (so to fit a 

fancy), 
All her magic ('t is the old sweet 

mythos), 
She would turn a new side to her 

mortal, 
Side unseen of herdsman, hunts- 
man, steersman — 
Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, 
Blind to Galileo on his turret, 
Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats — 

him, even! 

126 



Think, the wonder of the moon- 
struck mortal — 

When she turns round, comes again 
in heaven, 

Opens out anew for worse or better! 

Proves she like some portent of an 
iceberg 

Swimming full upon the ship it 
founders, 

Hungry with huge teeth of splin- 
tered crystals? 

Proves she as the paved work of a 
sapphire 

Seen by Moses when he climbed 
the mountain? 

Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu 

Climbed and saw the very God, the 
Highest, 

Stand upon the paved work of a 
sapphire. 

Like the bodied heaven in his clear- 
ness 

127 



Shone the stone, the sapphire of 

that paved work, 
When they ate and drank and saw 

God also! 



XVII 

What were seen? None knows, 

none ever shall know. 
Only this is sure— the sight were 

other, 
Not the moon's same side, born 

late in Florence, 
Dying now impoverished here in 

London. 
God be thanked, the meanest of 

his creatures 
Boasts two soul-sides, one to face 

the world with, 
One to show a woman when he 

loves her! 

128 



XVIII 

This I say of me, but think of you, 
Love! 

This to you— yourself my moon of 
poets! 

Ah, but that 's the world's side, 
there 's the wonder, 

Thus they see you, praise you, 
think they know you! 

There, in turn I stand with them 
and praise you — 

Out of my own self, I dare to 
phrase it. 

But the best is when I glide from 
out them, 

Cross a step or two of dubious twi- 
light, 

Come out on the other side, the 
novel 

Silent silver lights and darks un- 
dreamed of, 
9 129 



Where I hush and bless myself 
with silence. 

XIX 

Oh, their Rafael of the dear Ma- 
donnas, 

Oh, their Dante of the dread In- 
ferno, 

Wrote one song— and in my brain 
I sing it, 

Drew one angel — borne, see, on 
my bosom! 

R. B. 



130 



PROSPICE 

Fear death?— To feel the fog in 
my throat, 
The mist in my face, 
When the snows begin, and the 
blasts denote 
I am nearing the place, 
The power of the night, the press 
of the storm, 
The post of the foe ; 
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in 
a visible form, 
Yet the strong man must go : 
For the journey is done and the 
summit attained, 
131 



And the barriers fall, 
Though a battle 's to fight ere the 
guerdon be gained, 
The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so— one fight 
more, 
The best and the last! 
I would hate that death bandaged 
my eyes, and forbore, 
And bade me creep past. 
No! let me taste the whole of it, 
fare like my peers 
The heroes of old, 
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay 
glad life's arrears 
Of pain, darkness and cold. 
For sudden the worst turns the best 
to the brave, 
The black minute 's at end, 
And the elements' rage, the fiend- 
voices that rave, 
Shall dwindle, shall blend, 
132 



Shall change, shall become first a 
peace out of pain, 
Then a light, then thy breast, 
O thou soul of my soul! I shall 
clasp thee again, 
And with God be the rest! 



133 



"O LYRIC LOVE" 

(From "The Ring and the Book") 

O lyric Love, half angel and half 

bird, 
And all a wonder and a wild de- 
sire, — 
Boldest of hearts that ever braved 

the sun, 
Took sanctuary within the holier 

blue, 
And sang a kindred soul out to his 

face, — 
Yet human at the red-ripe of the 

heart — 
When the first summons from the 

darkling earth 
134 



Reached thee amid thy chambers, 
blanched their blue, 

And bared them of the glory — to 
drop down, 

To toil for man, to suffer or to 
die, — 

This is the same voice : can thy 
soul know change? 

Hail then, and hearken from the 
realms of help! 

Never may I commence my song, 
my due 

To God who best taught song by 
gift of thee, 

Except with bent head and be- 
seeching hand — 

That still, despite the distance and 
the dark, 

What was, again may be ; some in- 
terchange 

Of grace, some splendour once thy 
very thought, 
i35 



Some benediction anciently thy 

smile : 
— Never conclude, but raising 

hand and head 
Thither where eyes, that cannot 

reach, yet yearn 
For all hope, all sustainment, all 

reward, 
Their utmost up and on, — so bless- 
ing back 
In those thy realms of help, that 

heaven thy home, 
Some whiteness which, I judge, thy 

face makes proud, 
Some wanness where, I think, thy 

foot may fall! 



136 



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